Every week, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries live on 88Nine at 10 p.m. every Monday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Beloved Australian indie rocker Courtney Barnett has officially announced Creature of Habit, a 10-track album that will include “Site Unseen,” her latest single and a collab with Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield. Barnett’s last official album was 2021’s Things Take Time, Take Time — a title that wound up being a spot-on description of the recording process for “Site Unseen.”
“I tried three separate times over two years to track this song, and each time it either wasn’t finished or didn’t sound right, and each time we had to start again,” Barnett shared. “I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she’d be into singing it with me. I’m a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie’s songwriting and her voice, so it was an honor to have her sing.”
Crutchfield’s trademark twang and Barnett’s drawl join forces for a slice of indie rock that’s really satisfying, even though it centers around the wavering tension of indecision — something emphasized in the chorus:
Falling in and out of time today
Questioning all the choices that I ever made
Letting go of everything that might've been
And if we like it here, we'll stay another year
As for current status? Still a work in progress, and if Barnett truly is a “creature of habit” as she says, she’ll get to her destination eventually. She’s just gonna take things all in good time.
Look for Creature of Habit out March 27 via Mom+Pop, and listen to “Site Unseen” from Courtney Barnett and Waxahatchee on the latest episode of What’s All This, which you can hear in full using the player at the top of the page. Then be sure to tune in for a fresh batch of songs at 10 p.m. every Monday on 88Nine.
Best new indie music this week
- Lime Garden, “23”
- James Blake, “Death of Love”
- Arima Ederra, “You’re My”
- Monster Rally, “Rosella (ft. Sessa)”
- Wendy Eisenberg, “Meaning Business”
- Courtney Barnett, “Site Unseen (ft. Waxahatchee)”
- Jo Passed, “Dizzy Izzy”
- Bibi Club, “Washing Machine”
- Joji, “Last of a Dying Breed”
- Jaguar Sun, “No Turning”
- Alice Costelloe, “Anywhere Else”
- Fiona Fiasco, “Wasteland”
- Tofusmell, “(Me Tomorrow)”
